


Second

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [2]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back from a new mission, Jeremy has dislocated his shoulder. Rachel takes him to visit the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Simmons, whose behavior does not impress her. Includes two variations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Good morning, Jenny,” Rachel said, entering the outer office.

“Good morning, Dr. Ward,” the nurse answered. “Here’s your mail, and your coffee. Oh, and Jeremy Green’s already in there waiting for you.” Rachel’s eyebrows shot up and she looked at her watch; it was about seven forty-five in the morning, and she hadn’t even realized Jeremy was back in town. “He just came in a few minutes ago,” Jenny added. “He looks pretty banged up but he wouldn’t let me do anything for him.”

“Okay, thanks, Jenny,” Rachel told her, mentally preparing herself before she walked into the exam room.

Jeremy looked up as she entered, a slightly hopeful tinge to his otherwise neutral expression she thought. He did indeed look rather disheveled and he was holding his arm against his side. Also he was wearing a wetsuit, it appeared.

“Hey, Jeremy,” she greeted. “Do you remember me from last time?” She didn’t want to have the same sort of identification trouble she’d faced on his first visit.

“Yes, you’re Dr. Ward,” he answered promptly.

“Okay then.” Rachel dropped her coat, purse, and mail in a chair, set her coffee aside, and reached for her lab coat. Couldn’t practice medicine without a lab coat, of course. “What seems to be the trouble today?”

“I dislocated my shoulder,” he told her.

Rachel winced on his behalf. “Okay. I better get this thing off you first,” she decided of the wetsuit. He unzipped it partway and got his good arm out of it, but Rachel couldn’t see pulling the skintight fabric from his damaged shoulder. “Do you mind if I just cut it?” she asked. “It’s not your favorite wetsuit or anything?”

He gave her an odd look and she was reminded that his sense of humor wasn’t exactly well-developed. “It’s okay,” he allowed.

Rachel fixed a blade onto a scalpel and turned back to him. “Now I do suggest you hold still,” she started to warn him, when suddenly his good hand came up and encircled her wrist, freezing the scalpel in place. “Problem, tiger?” she asked dryly.

He leaned forward and sniffed at her, then released her hand. “No, it’s okay. Go ahead.”

“Guess I better not change my deodorant, huh?” Rachel joked as she carefully sliced through the rubbery material.

“You already have,” Jeremy stated, watching her work. “It’s different from last time.”

Rachel started to contradict him, then realized he was right. “Very astute,” she complimented. “But points off for style. I thought you’d be wearing a tux under this thing.”

Jeremy’s eyes narrowed a fraction to indicate his confusion. “That would be impractical,” he pointed out.

Rachel smiled a little as she carefully removed the wetsuit covering his arm and shoulder, then grimaced at the injury revealed. “You couldn’t just pop that back into place yourself, tough guy?” she asked, examining it closely.

“Wrong angle.”

Rachel started to turn away towards the door. “I think I’m gonna get someone with a little more upper-body strength to do this, buddy,” she decided, not wanting it to take any longer than necessary for him.

“Ow,” Jeremy said from behind her, and when she glanced back he was giving her what she loosely interpreted as puppy dog eyes.

“You really want _me_ to do it?” He didn’t say no. “Okay. Lie down.”

Jeremy laid down on the exam table and Rachel positioned herself above him. “Okay, I’m gonna do it on three. Ready? One—“ She pushed, the bone popped back into its joint, and Jeremy let out only a muted gasp before collapsing back on the table, panting.

“You said _three_!” he accused peevishly.

“I didn’t want you to tense up,” Rachel explained. She moved the heatlamp above his injured shoulder to mollify him. “Alright, what else have we got here? Some nice lacerations, and what are they filled with?”

“Probably glass,” Jeremy replied.

“Yes, I would agree,” Rachel told him, reaching for tweezers and a pan. “How about a little local anesthetic to make you more comfortable—“ He caught her wrist again, holding the syringe. “You shouldn’t be using that arm, you should be _resting_ it, buster,” she chided. “Okay, I won’t use any anesthetic if you don’t want it.” He let her go and laid his hand back over his chest out of her way. “There’s no need for all the grabbiness, just use your words next time,” Rachel went on, starting to pick some glass shards out of a cut. “And just so you know, it’s perfectly cool to use anesthetic, even Karl uses anesthetic. Oh, maybe you don’t know Karl,” she realized.

“I do.” She imagined he didn’t care for him.

“Big blond Viking guy?” Rachel checked.

“He _is_ large and blond,” Jeremy agreed, making no judgment on the Viking part.

The heatlamp seemed to relax him and he closed his eyes, almost drifting off while Rachel worked on his side. The other agents—Karl, Min Lee, etc.—were not very chatty either, but they didn’t exactly snooze on her exam table. If anything it was more like they shut themselves down for repair.

Rachel tried to wheel her chair quietly around to his other side but the squeaking made his eyes flutter open anyway. “Sorry, tiger, didn’t mean to wake you,” she apologized. “You must be pretty exhausted. How’d you get all these cuts, anyway?”

“I drove a car off a roof.”

“Huh,” Rachel commented. “Well, I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Not really.”

Rachel finished applying the last bandage and discarded her gloves. “Okay, got anything below the belt I should take a look at?”

“Yes,” Jeremy decided, deadly serious as always, and Rachel helped him remove the rest of the wetsuit.

“Goin’ commando, huh?” she commented. “That makes things simpler, I suppose. Okay, sit back down. Here.” She handed him a sheet.

“What should I do with this?” Jeremy questioned in confusion.

Rachel glanced up to make sure he was indeed confused and not just toying with her. “Put it over your lap, Running Bare,” she instructed dryly. “Let’s preserve a little modesty here.” He did as she asked, though with an air of bemusement. “Your knee looks kind of messed up,” she assessed with some concern. “That’s official medical terminology, by the way.”

“Ow,” Jeremy responded as she gently probed it. “Two-point-one-four.”

She imagined his expression indicated an eagerness to please, though she might have been exaggerating it. “Good, you remembered the pain scale,” she praised. “You did not, however, remember to _tell_ me when something was bothering you.”

“I was going to,” he claimed. He watched her actions with interest, dutifully bending his knee as instructed and saying ‘ow’ at appropriate moments.

“I’m gonna have to send you down to X-Ray for this one, bub,” she decided.

“Up,” Jeremy corrected. “Can’t you fix it?” She tried not to interpret the question as him feeling rejected.

“Well, I need to know what it looks like inside, and consult with the orthopedic surgeon,” she explained. Jeremy wrinkled his nose slightly. “Don’t you like Dr. Simmons?” she guessed.

“It will heal on its own,” Jeremy responded instead.

“Let’s not be recalcitrant, tiger,” Rachel warned him. “I want to take care of a couple more cuts on your leg here. You want to put your leg up, or is it fine bent?”

“It’s fine,” Jeremy said, to no one’s surprise.

Rachel decided to take him at his word and rolled over to clean a laceration on his other thigh. “You sure about no anesthetic?” she asked again.

“It dulls my senses,” he told her.

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Rachel reminded him, but he seemed firm on this point so she started working without it. None of the other agents seemed interested in what she was doing to them like Jeremy did, and she finally had to move her exam lamp to a different angle because he kept blocking it when he leaned over to watch her.

“You had oranges for breakfast,” Jeremy remarked.

“That’s right, I did,” Rachel agreed. “An orange and some yogurt. Disgustingly healthy, and not the most filling. I might have to grab a Snickers later.”

“What’s your favorite scent?” he followed up with. She wasn’t used to the agents asking personal questions of her—though Min Lee had demanded a detailed résumé at first and still sometimes quizzed her on medical knowledge. She gave his query some thought.

“Hmm… well… The first thing that comes to mind is roses,” Rachel responded.

“Roses have thorns and stiff branches, creating a potentially damaging obstacle,” Jeremy pointed out.

“Well, they also have pretty flowers with a nice scent,” Rachel countered dryly.

“Oh.”

“My mom grows roses,” she went on, since he seemed curious. “She has dozens of different varieties. You know, each variety has a different scent, a lot of people don’t realize that. Especially since florist roses don’t usually smell much at all, and perfumes and everything push ‘rose’ like it’s a single scent.”

He frowned as though she were speaking about something completely foreign to him that he was nonetheless determined to follow. “Really?”

“Yes,” Rachel confirmed. “Personally, I think the Mr. Lincoln variety has the classic ‘rose’ scent and color, being a deep, true red.” He gave this considerable thought. “What’s _your_ favorite scent?” she asked in return.

“Oranges.”

Ah, now she saw how this had gotten started. “That’s a nice one,” she agreed. “Is that your favorite fruit to eat?”

“Oranges contain vitamins and minerals, as well as water and sugar, in a relatively hardy and portable container which is waterproof and biodegradable,” Jeremy informed her. “Also they’re safe to consume without reliance on cooking or local water supplies.”

It was probably the most Rachel had ever heard him say in one go. “That’s very practical,” she finally told him. “It’s probably tough obtaining proper nutrition in the field.”

“Yes.”

She finished bandaging the last cut. “Okay, onto the next adventure,” she announced, and Jeremy looked at her quizzically. She stuck her head out the exam room door and told Jenny, “Hey, could you call down to Orthopedics and tell Dr. Simmons I’m bringing Jeremy down for an x-ray and consult? Thanks.”

“It will heal on its own,” Jeremy repeated with a tinge of stubbornness.

“Who’s the doctor here, tough guy?” Rachel asked sternly.

“You are.”

“Right. So we’re going to do what _I_ say,” she concluded.

“Okay.”

Rachel pulled some scrubs off her shelf. “Okay, here’s some clothes for you. Do you think you can walk on your knee?” Jeremy blinked at her. “By which I mean, walk properly, considering that your knee is messed up,” she clarified.

“Yes.”

Rachel sensed an underlying qualifier. “If you had to? Like running from an exploding car?” she guessed.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to get you a wheelchair,” she decided while he dressed. Jenny had one in the outer office and she raised an eyebrow when Rachel retrieved it. “Dr. Simmons is free?” Rachel checked.

“Yes, he’ll be ready,” Jenny confirmed.

Rachel pushed the wheelchair back into the exam room, where Jeremy stood (a bit defiantly, she felt) in his scrubs and fuzzy socks. “I can walk,” he claimed.

“We just did this routine, buster,” Rachel reminded him, unimpressed. “Sit down.” He sat. “You need anything from the wetsuit? I was going to have Jenny throw it away.”

“That’s okay.”

“Alright.” Rachel leaned into the wheelchair. “Away we go. G-d, you’re really heavy.” He reached down and released the parking brake. “Oh, thanks.”

Rachel wheeled him past Jenny and out into the corridor. “Do you need assistance pushing me?” Jeremy inquired.

“No, I’m good,” Rachel assured him, heading towards the elevators.

“You could ask an orderly,” he suggested. “Certain strength requirements are part of their job qualifications.”

“Are you saying you lack confidence in my wheelchair-pushing ability?” Rachel teased.

“You were reluctant to relocate my shoulder,” he pointed out as she backed him onto an elevator.

Rachel held the door for a couple of other staff members, who changed their minds about riding along, then hesitated as she looked at the button panel. Jeremy reached up and pushed the button for the correct floor. “Thank you. That was a totally different thing,” she claimed. The inoffensive, bland elevator music tinkled around them. “What kind of music do you like?” she asked him, since he seemed to respond to personal questions like that.

“Silence.”

She should’ve guessed. “Very Zen.”

The elevator let them out on the proper floor and Rachel pointed him towards the security station. “Morning, Dr. Ward,” said one of the guards.

“Good morning, Bill,” she responded. “Jeremy and I are going through to Orthopedics.”

“Okay, I’ll just need fingerprint scans from both of you,” Bill replied, indicating the panel on his desk.

Jeremy swiped his finger across the screen, well-practiced at security checks. After a moment the panel beeped and a green light flashed, confirming his identity. Then Rachel did hers. There was a pause, longer than she expected, then the panel buzzed and flashed red. “Sorry, it’s not finding you in the database,” Bill told her.

“She _is_ Dr. Ward,” Jeremy insisted tensely. “She smells like her!”

“Easy, tiger,” Rachel said, patting his good shoulder. “It’s just a glitch.” Bill and his partner glanced nervously at Jeremy, who did not exactly attempt to put them at ease. “So should I try again?” Rachel prompted them.

“Um, try wiping your hands first,” Gary suggested, passing her a container of handi-wipes. “Sometimes if you’ve got something on your hands it interferes with the scanner.”

“Oh, okay,” Rachel agreed, wiping her hands. She let the panel scan her finger again, and this time the identification was positive. “See, it’s really me,” she told Jeremy lightly.

“I _know_.”

“Thanks, guys,” she added to the guards as they let her past.

“Have a nice day, Dr. Ward,” Bill called after her.

As they headed towards the orthopedic office another doctor pushing someone in a wheelchair came towards them and Rachel made sure she was leaving them enough room to pass. “Hi, Dr. Ward,” the doctor greeted, slowing to a stop.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Kedar,” Rachel replied, wondering briefly if her hair still looked okay. There was probably a policy against dating co-workers, but it didn’t hurt to make an effort. Her eyes strayed to his patient, a blond woman who slumped listlessly in the wheelchair. “Good morning,” Rachel told her, even though she was met by a dull stare.

“Susan,” Jeremy prompted, reaching over to shake her arm.

“Hey, careful,” Rachel cautioned him. He frowned as Susan only blinked in response.

“Arm and wrist damage,” Dr. Kedar commented casually, giving Jeremy a sidelong glance. “Yours?”

“Oh, this is Jeremy,” Rachel introduced. “We’re gonna get his knee checked out. Tell Dr. Kedar what you did.” Jeremy gave the man a suspicious look and clammed up. “He drove a car off a roof,” she supplied for him.

“Yeah, mine jumped out of a helicopter without a parachute,” Dr. Kedar replied, rolling his eyes disdainfully.

“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Rachel commented, suddenly feeling the conversation had gone on too long. She started to push Jeremy forward. “Well, have a good day.”

“Oh, hey, Dr. Ward,” Dr. Kedar said, stopping her, “I was just wondering what you were doing for lunch today? There’s this Thai place—“

Jeremy turned in the wheelchair and snarled at him, and the doctor went white. “Chill, buster,” Rachel ordered, pulling on his good shoulder. “Sorry, his knee’s probably bothering him,” she explained, moving away. “Catch you later!” She wasn’t exactly sad the conversation had gotten cut off; it was starting to become awkward. Briskly she wheeled Jeremy away to the orthopedic office.

“Jeremy Green,” she announced to the nurse on duty.

“Oh, right, Dr. Ward,” the woman replied. “You can go on in, Dr. Simmons will be there in a minute.”

“Thanks.” Rachel pushed the wheelchair into the exam room and parked it by the table. “Let’s get you up here,” she told Jeremy. “You need help?”

“No, I’m okay.” He boosted himself up on the edge of the table and Rachel moved the wheelchair aside.

“I’m gonna roll your pant leg up over your knee,” she decided. “You think that’ll work?”

“Yes,” he responded, so she started. He kept an eye on her per usual, but she got the sense he was upset about something.

“What’s bothering you, tiger?” she asked him sympathetically. “Your knee? Probably shouldn’t give you any painkillers until Dr. Simmons is done examining it, sorry. But I can ask him—“

“No,” Jeremy denied. Then he added, in a troubled tone, “Something was wrong with Susan.”

“Oh,” Rachel realized, with some surprise. She thought socialization between the agents was discouraged by the Center; though really, it wasn’t odd that they should know and be concerned about each other. “Well, Dr. Kedar didn’t seem to think it was too serious,” she assured him.

“She’d been drugged,” Jeremy clarified. “Her eyes were glassy with dilated pupils. Paverine, probably.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Rachel agreed. Paverine, commonly used at the Center, wasn’t so much for pain relief as overall sedation, so on the surface it didn’t entirely make sense to her. “Well, I’ll ask him about it later,” she told Jeremy. “I might not be able to tell you, though,” she cautioned, “confidentiality and all. Will you see her later, do you think?”

“I’d better.” There was a hint of steely determination in his tone.

Before she could ask about it the door opened and Dr. Simmons entered. “Good morning, Dr. Ward,” he said, glancing at the chart in his hands. “Damaged knee, huh?” He looked up and saw Jeremy sitting on the exam table with his pant leg rolled up. “All ready to go, huh? Good.” Rachel conveyed to him what she’d already observed and he began his own examination, poking and prodding at Jeremy’s knee. He was a little more firm than Rachel had been when handling it but Jeremy offered no objection.

After a few moments, though, Rachel just had to ask. “Doctor, I wonder if it would be okay to give Jeremy a painkiller soon. Would it interfere with your exam?”

Dr. Simmons gave her a look of mild surprise. “The injury’s not that serious,” he dismissed, and Rachel raised an eyebrow at his judgment. “With the paverine he probably can’t feel a thing.”

“Wait,” Rachel interrupted. “What paverine?”

Dr. Simmons looked over at her slowly. “Isn’t he sedated?” he asked, his tone rapidly losing hope.

“No,” Rachel replied. “Why would he be?” Jeremy growled at Dr. Simmons, who backed his chair away. It was not a serious growl, though, in Rachel’s opinion.

“Mm-hmm,” Simmons responded assessingly. He held himself more stiffly now, his casualness more forced. “You’re new here, aren’t you, Dr. Ward?” he asked, drawing a wheeled cart over to himself without taking his eyes off Jeremy.

“Not _that_ new,” Rachel countered coolly.

“It’s standard practice to sedate the agents with 10CC’s of paverine before exams,” Simmons explained in a business-like tone, pulling a syringe from a drawer.

“Ten CC’s?” Rachel repeated in surprise. “For just an _exam_?”

“Is that what you did to Susan?” Jeremy asked accusingly.

“It just makes things more comfortable,” Simmons assured her in a studiously affable tone, ignoring Jeremy’s comment.

“More comfortable for _who_?” Rachel wanted to know.

Simmons did not respond to that, either. “Alright, this will start working very quickly, and all that pain will be gone,” he told Jeremy, reaching for his arm.

Much to his alarm, Jeremy caught his wrist before he could apply the syringe. “Jeremy, do you want to be sedated for this exam?” Rachel asked him, not trying very hard to keep the bias out of her voice.

“No.” He gave Simmons a hard look.

“Now, there’s no need to be hostile,” Simmons placated, and Rachel made a noise of exasperation. Use of ‘the H-word’ triggered an alarm in the monitoring room that would put all eyes on them, and possibly guards outside the door. “The paverine is just to keep them calm—“

“Jeremy _is_ calm,” Rachel snapped. “Jeremy is the calmest person in this room!”


	2. Variation 1

Dr. Simmons glanced between the two of them nervously. “Okay,” he agreed, as if it were no big deal. “No sedation. That’s fine.” Jeremy assessed him a moment longer, then let him go. Simmons immediately rolled away, rubbing his wrist.

“You know, I think I’ve got the hang of this whole ‘doctor’ thing,” Rachel commented sarcastically, moving back towards the table. To say she was unimpressed with Simmons’s attitude was an understatement. “Why don’t I just get the x-rays myself and I’ll ask you about them if I have any questions.”

“Dr. Ward, I’ve worked here a long time,” Simmons began, and she rolled her eyes with her back to him as she helped Jeremy off the table. “There are proper procedures for a reason, to ensure that no one gets hurt—“

Rachel wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. Jeremy pulled her aside swiftly, then made a sudden movement behind her back, which led to a shout of pain from Dr. Simmons. When Rachel whirled around there was a syringe sticking out of the doctor’s neck—the same syringe he’d supposedly set aside. Red-faced, he collapsed to the ground just as the guards burst into the small room, shouting and brandishing tranquilizer guns.

Rachel ignored whatever they were saying and knelt beside Simmons. “I need some help in here!” she called, checking his vitals. They were not good. Ten CC’s of paverine was enough to put an agent into a stupor—it could be fatal to an ordinary person. “He’s going into cardiac arrest. I need a defibrillator.” None materialized in her hands and she glanced up to see that all the guards had their eyes, and guns, firmly trained on Jeremy.

“Hey!” Rachel snapped. “This man’s heart has _stopped beating_. If you don’t get me some help, and hand me that defibrillator, _he is going to die_.” One guard nodded to another, who stepped out of the room finally. “Jeremy,” Rachel prompted, nodding at the defibrillator on the wall behind him. With a brief glance at the guards he pulled the components off the wall and knelt down beside Rachel. “You know how to work that?” she checked, ripping open Simmons’s shirt.

“Yes.” He was already charging the unit. “Ready.”

Rachel prepared the paddles and attached them to the doctor’s chest. “Clear.” The electrical shock jerked his body violently. “I’ve got a pulse,” Rachel announced. “Get me a heart monitor.”

This time one _did_ appear at hand and she looked up to see someone new in a white coat drop down beside her. “Who are you?” she asked, business-like.

“Cardiologist,” he replied in kind. “What’ve we got?”

“Paverine to the jugular,” Rachel informed him. “Five to seven CC’s.” She didn’t think he’d gotten the entire dose.

“More precise,” the doctor instructed, taking over.

“Does anyone see the syringe?” Rachel called out. Guns cocked in unison and she looked up to see Jeremy holding it. She held out her hand and without hesitation he dropped the syringe into it. “Six point one,” she told the cardiologist, checking the remaining volume.

A gurney arrived and they loaded Simmons onto it. “Quick thinking, Doctor,” the cardiologist complimented. “You might have saved his life.”

“He’ll wish I hadn’t when I’m done with him,” Rachel snapped, to the other doctor’s surprise. “SOB tried to tranq my patient—“

“That patient?” the doctor pointed out, before wheeling Simmons away. Rachel turned just in time to see Jeremy, already on his knees on the floor, take the butt of a guard’s gun to his face.

“Hey!” Rachel shouted in outrage. Jeremy stayed curled up protectively on the floor while Rachel shoved herself between him and the guard. “What the f—k is wrong with you?!” The guard made no response. “What’s your name?” Rachel demanded of him dangerously. “ _Your name_.”

“Grayson, ma’am!” he finally answered snappily, like a soldier on inspection.

“Get out,” Rachel ordered him. He hesitated and she gave him an unyielding look. Quickly he turned and left.

Then she could get down on the floor to check on Jeremy. “Hey, come here, let me see,” she coaxed, trying to pull his hands away from his face.

“Ma’am—“ the remaining guard began.

“Those next words better be, ‘Here’s some damp paper towels,’” Rachel interrupted pointedly. Jeremy blinked at her balefully above his bloodied nose, which she carefully probed. “Okay, I don’t think it’s broken,” she decided.

“Ma’am, here’s some damp paper towels,” the guard said dutifully.

“Thank you,” Rachel replied, dabbing the blood off Jeremy’s face. “Bring that wheelchair over. How’s your knee?” she asked Jeremy, knowing the answer couldn’t be good.

“Three-point-one-seven,” he judged.

Rachel sighed. “Okay. We are gonna get some x-rays done, then I’m gonna put you to bed for rest, okay?” Jeremy nodded obediently. “Can you help me get him up?” she asked the other guard, who complied.

They got him situated in the wheelchair just as a nurse poked her head nervously through the doorway. “Um, do you need any help?” she asked, clearly hoping the answer was no.

“Is the x-ray room open?” Rachel asked, handing Jeremy some fresh paper towels.

“Um, yes, Doctor.”

“Well, tell the tech to get ready,” Rachel went on. The nurse looked askance at Jeremy. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle him.” Rachel supposed she couldn’t exactly blame the nurse for being anxious, after seeing what had happened to her boss. The woman nodded and left.

“Ma’am,” the remaining guard ventured, “I’m supposed to take him to Detention after an incident—“ He shut up at Rachel’s look.

“He needs medical attention,” she pronounced frostily. “Then he will be in his room.” Locked in, probably. “Thank you for your help, I’ll take it from here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard responded. “Are you sure you don’t need any more help?”

Despite her best intentions of being polite to the one semi-useful guard, Rachel felt her temper flare at his question. Her nerves were shot and she was already replaying the event constantly in her mind, searching for something she might have missed that would have prevented the incident—though really, how was she to know Simmons was going to be such an a-shole? She’d sent other agents to him in the past and never heard of any problems. Maybe none of them objected to being sedated.

At that moment a familiar figure lumbered into the doorway. “Hey, Dr. Ward,” Luis greeted. “Heard you had some trouble.”

“Luis,” Rachel exclaimed gratefully. “Luis will help us. Thank you.” Finally the guard nodded and left, and Jeremy relaxed a little. “Luis, can you push him for me?” She tried to lighten the mood a little. “Sorry, tiger, but you weigh a ton.”

“The parking brake’s on,” Jeremy reminded her again, tilting his head back in an attempt to stop his nosebleed.

Luis was built like a football player but had a distinctly non-threatening personality that Jeremy seemed to appreciate. They spoke in Spanish as Luis wheeled him down the hall and Rachel thought she heard her name. “Are you talking about me?” she asked, attempting to be playful.

“Sí,” Jeremy replied.

“He was saying you kicked a-s with the guards, Dr. Ward,” Luis paraphrased with admiration. “I know a guy in the monitoring room, maybe I can watch the tape later.”

“Why did that guy hit you?” Rachel asked rhetorically, angrily. “G-d, I wanted to rip his face shield off and beat him with it!”

Jeremy tugged lightly on the sleeve of her lab coat. “You have to stay calm, Dr. Ward,” he pointed out. Luis found the admonishment entertaining.

“Yeah, well… I guess it was good _you_ stayed calm when he hit you,” Rachel allowed reluctantly, because if he hadn’t it would’ve made the whole thing even worse. “But why didn’t you with Simmons? Not that you should’ve just let him tranq you, mind, I’m just curious what the difference was.”

“I thought he was going to hurt you,” Jeremy replied, unexpectedly.

“What? Me?” Rachel repeated in surprise. They stopped in the x-ray room and got Jeremy up on the table. “You thought Dr. Simmons was going to tranq _me_?”

“Guess he knew who the dangerous one was,” Luis laughed.

“He wasn’t going to tranq _me_ ,” Rachel assured Jeremy, aiming the x-ray device at his knee. “You saw what it did to _him_.”

“It felt threatening.” And Jeremy was trained to neutralize threats.

Rachel decided to table that discussion. “Okay, tiger, let’s get some pictures of your knee,” she went on. “And we’ll do your shoulder, too, while we’re here.” She pulled out her phone quickly to check her calendar. “Then I have an appointment with Min Lee at eleven, and oh look, Director Quarles wants to talk to me,” she added dryly. “Wonder what _that’s_ about.”

**

The air was thick with tension when Rachel sat down on the other side of the large desk from directors Quarles and Delu. The ‘incident,’ as she’d been calling it in her report, had happened only the day before and her anger over it was still fresh; so she wasn’t sure if she was approaching the meeting in the humble spirit that might be expected.

Quarles jumped right into it, all the different reports spread out in front of him. “So, Dr. Ward, have you seen Jeremy this morning?” he asked.

“Yes, I checked on him in his room first thing,” she replied.

“You went to his room?” the man asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I didn’t want him walking to my office with his injured knee,” Rachel explained. “I knew he wouldn’t use a wheelchair or crutches, he’s stubborn that way.”

Quarles shot a little look to Delu. “And how was Jeremy today?”

“He was doing pretty well, considering his injuries,” she assessed. “He said his shoulder wasn’t bothering him at all, and the lacerations were healing quite well. His knee was still painful, and his nose.”

“But he didn’t want anything for those?” Quarles checked. “Even aspirin?”

“No, sir,” Rachel confirmed. “He has a pretty high pain tolerance, and he says analgesics dull his senses.”

“Mm-hmm,” Quarles commented vaguely. “Well, it was quite the excitement yesterday, hmm?” he went on, with grim and slightly inappropriate enthusiasm. “I’ve read your report, seen the footage, talked to witnesses… Can’t talk to Dr. Simmons, unfortunately, as he’s in a coma”—Rachel wasn’t going to cry over _that_ —“but Dr. Danzig thinks he’ll recover eventually. Of course he won’t be working here anymore,” Quarles added, glancing at Rachel to check her reaction. “I think it’s about time for him to retire anyway.”

“And what about the guard, Grayson?” Rachel asked immediately. “The one who assaulted Jeremy without provocation.”

“We’re going to find another use for him,” Quarles replied, in a tone so bland it was almost sinister.

“And the other guard—I didn’t get his name, but he was helpful,” Rachel added.

“Yes, it’s been noted,” Quarles assured her, dismissively. “What I would like to hear from you, Dr. Ward,” he went on, “is what you think went wrong.”

“Dr. Simmons acted inappropriately,” she responded immediately. “He _said_ he wasn’t going to sedate Jeremy—since both Jeremy and I objected to it—then he turned around and tried to do it anyway. Of course Jeremy felt threatened, and he acted on instinct,” she opined. “And, well, he’s not really trained to _minimize_ damage to threats, is he?”

“No, I suppose not,” Quarles was forced to concede.

“But Jeremy said it was _you_ who was being threatened, didn’t he?” Delu put in delicately. “I mean, he explained later when you asked that he was protecting _you_ , and that’s why he reacted violently. As opposed to when Grayson struck him, and he just laid down.”

Rachel didn’t like thinking about that part. “Yes, sir, that’s what he said,” she confirmed. “On the surface, it doesn’t make sense, because Dr. Simmons would have no rational need to sedate _me_ , and anyway he was well aware of how powerful paverine is, obviously giving even a small dose to someone like me would have catastrophic results.” As they had seen.

“But again, that’s Jeremy’s training and instincts,” she theorized. “Dr. Simmons and I were arguing, and then Simmons was coming in our direction with the syringe, which _he had said he wasn’t going to use_ ,” she emphasized. “He probably just put two and two together in his mind and made a snap decision to intervene.”

“To protect you,” Quarles reiterated.

Rachel wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Well, I guess he felt I was on his… side,” she suggested. “Since I also objected to him being sedated.”

Quarles and Delu shared another significant look. Rachel wished they would quit doing that. “Sir, is Jeremy going to be disciplined?” she inquired, very much certain of her own opinion on the matter. “Whether he was acting in self-defense or defense of me—Dr. Simmons was the one at fault. And Jeremy did _nothing_ to warrant being assaulted by Grayson,” she went on angrily, without giving them a chance to answer. “He was on his knees, even though his knee was injured, and he had been _helping_ me with Simmons—the defibrillator, the syringe. He didn’t do anything _wrong_.”

Quarles and Delu were quiet for a long moment. “How long have you worked here, Dr. Ward?” Delu asked in an incongruously cheerful tone.

“About two months.”

“And in that time, you’ve not had any problems with your patients?” he questioned leadingly.

Rachel blinked in confusion. “You mean medical problems, or…?”

“Behavior problems,” Quarles cut in sharply. “Have you ever felt threatened by any of the agents?”

“Well, of _course_ ,” she replied, trying not to overreact to his tone. “My very first day, I walk into my exam room and Jeremy points a gun at me!”

“Oh, right,” Quarles remembered, as though it were a minor incident.

“But I don’t feel like they’re… threatening as a matter of course,” Rachel tried to explain. “Like they need to be sedated or _beaten_ when they haven’t done anything wrong, because they—twitch their eye and it means they’re about to pounce.”

“You’d prefer to wait until they pounce?” Quarles concluded dryly.

“I prefer to assume they’re capable of controlling themselves,” Rachel replied coolly, “and won’t lash out unless provoked, after giving plenty of warning signs. Like anyone. Dr. Simmons provoked Jeremy and didn’t heed the warning signs.” She held his gaze. “Is Jeremy going to be disciplined, or not?”

Quarles gave Delu a bland look, and the other man shrugged. “Well, I don’t think _discipline_ is actually necessary,” he decided carefully. “Maybe some additional sessions with Dr. Zhu, some reinforcement training in threat assessment.”

“He _did_ make a mistake in assessment, if he thought Dr. Simmons was going to hurt you,” Delu pointed out.

Rachel could hardly argue with that idea, even though she wanted to. “By the way, quick work with the defibrillator,” Quarles added off-hand. “Danzig said that probably saved Simmons’s life.”

Rachel shrugged a little. “Jeremy helped,” she couldn’t miss pointing out.

“Yes, of course,” Delu agreed pleasantly.

“Well, thank you, Dr. Ward,” Quarles said, in a dismissive tone.

Rachel stood to leave, somewhat surprised at the brevity of the interview. She paused at the door. “I was just wondering—is there anything you think I should’ve done differently?” she questioned.

“Well, I suppose you could’ve sedated Jeremy from the start,” Quarles suggested pointedly. He saw how well that idea went over with Rachel and added, “But you seem more comfortable working without that, and your patients respond well to you.”

“Maybe a little more—“ Delu prompted him.

“Oh, yes, a little more calmness from you around the agents might help,” Quarles added. “They pick up on tension in the air—“

“As you noted,” Delu added helpfully.

“Right. And they can get agitated.”

Rachel nodded—she didn’t really like hearing the criticism, but she realized they had a point. “Yes, sir. I’ll work on that,” she promised, and left.

When the door had clicked shut behind her Quarles turned his chair to face Delu with a questioning expression. “Well,” Delu replied with uncertainty, “she makes a good case.”

Quarles made a noise of exasperation. “He assaulted a staff member, put him in a coma. With a flimsy excuse. If Simmons said, ‘You need to be sedated,’ Green should’ve said, ‘Yes, sir’ and held out his arm.”

“Well, maybe Dr. Ward—“

“Her presence could have influenced his behavior,” Quarles agreed. “She seems to value their autonomy.” This was not necessarily a good thing.

“But she rarely has problems on her own,” Delu pointed out, more positively. “With the toughest cases, that Lopez was always complaining about. And I think it’s clear from the video that Green _wasn’t_ doing anything aggressive when Simmons decided to sedate him.”

“Yes, Simmons _did_ sound surprised to be told Green wasn’t already down,” Quarles was forced to admit. “If he’d left well enough alone—“ He sighed, unable to come to a firm conclusion on the matter. “And this Dr. Ward, she’s very—can I use the word ‘feisty’ still?” he questioned idly. “I feel silly using that word.”

“She’s a strong advocate for her patients,” Delu rephrased. “She doesn’t like to see them get hit in the face.”

“I suppose that _was_ over the line,” Quarles agreed reluctantly. Though honestly if no one had complained—and Green wouldn’t have on his own—he wouldn’t have thought much of it. “What about that whole ‘protecting her’ thing? Troubling or no?”

Delu shrugged a little. “We know the agents respond better to some people than to others,” he reminded the other man. “It’s good to have people like that, to calm them when there’s trouble.”

“But this is the _opposite_ of calming,” Quarles countered. “Okay, suppose he really thought Simmons was coming at her. Or that she might get hit on accident. I admit, on all the videos, it looks a little close. But then he should’ve just pushed her aside—“

“Which he did,” Delu noted.

“—and either taken the hit himself, or grabbed Simmons’s arm again or something like that,” Quarles decided. “Grabbing the syringe out of his hand and stabbing him with it is just—“

“Punitive,” Delu agreed. “Well, he was just back from a mission, they’re always more jittery then.”

“There’s jittery and then there’s jittery,” Quarles responded dryly. “I don’t know. We’ll see what Dr. Zhu thinks. Definitely some retraining will be necessary.”

“I suppose so,” Delu nodded. “Though, Green is a very good agent, very good at certain types of assignments, and we don’t want to disrupt that.”

Quarles considered this. “That’s true. Of course it’s not really a good precedent to set, stabbing staff members…”

“’The asset is more important than you are,’” Delu recited. “That’s a difficult thing for them to learn, with the enhanced survival instincts. Green is generally reliable on that score.”

“So he sees Dr. Ward as an asset?” Quarles mused.

“Well, consider the long term play,” Delu suggested. “He knew there’d been a hostility trigger, he knew there were guards nearby. He certainly knew what would happen if he assaulted Simmons. Or would’ve happened—“

“Should’ve happened,” Quarles added thoughtfully. “So he’s protecting the asset, not just from immediate harm, but from future threats. From Simmons.”

“At a likely high cost to himself, when the guards arrive to stop him,” Delu concluded. “And Simmons _was_ deceptive, let’s not forget that. Understandable, of course, but guaranteed to trigger an agent.”

“Stupid,” Quarles assessed bluntly. “Sleight of hand with an agent? Whose reflexes are… He should’ve just insisted verbally. Or gone with the ‘vitamin shot’ story.”

“Dr. Ward would not have stood for either of those,” Delu predicted. “A vitamin shot, and Green passes out on the table? She would’ve raised h—l.”

“But no one would be in a coma,” Quarles noted. “Might make a good training exercise for the staff, actually.”

“Maybe in a few months,” Delu countered dryly, “after we see if Simmons survives.”

“I never liked him much anyway,” Quarles shrugged.


	3. Variation 2

“Now, there’s no need to be hostile,” Simmons placated, and Rachel made a noise of exasperation. Use of ‘the H-word’ triggered an alarm in the monitoring room that would put all eyes on them, and possibly guards outside the door. “The paverine is just to keep them calm—“

“Jeremy _is_ calm,” Rachel snapped. “Jeremy is the calmest person in this room!”

Simmons’s gaze flickered between the two of them. “Just so,” he noted. “Well, okay then, no sedation.” He tried to sound as though it were no big deal, but really he had little choice in the matter. Jeremy assessed him a moment longer, then let go, and Simmons rolled away out of arm’s reach, rubbing his wrist.

Rachel stepped up to check on Jeremy. “How’s your knee, tiger? You want anything for it?” She guessed he wouldn’t, after Simmons’s sedation attempt, and indeed he shook his head. “Not even an aspirin or something?”

“Maybe later,” he allowed.

“So, x-rays of right knee,” Simmons commented, scribbling in a file.

“He dislocated his right shoulder, too,” Rachel conveyed. “You want to check that while we’re here?”

“Oh, if he doesn’t _mind_ ,” Simmons replied with a hint of facetiousness. Rachel rolled her eyes with her back to him, making a mental note to see if there were other orthopedists on staff she could consult instead.

She helped Jeremy take his shirt off and made sure to keep in his line of sight while Simmons checked his shoulder. Jeremy seemed interested in what the doctor was doing, which only appeared to make the other man more nervous. Well, if you were used to your patients just sitting there motionless like plants, she supposed it _would_ be unnerving. Finally Simmons moved away to make a few more notes, glancing back over his shoulder and scooting farther away when Jeremy leaned forward to read them.

“You know what,” Rachel said to Jeremy, stepping forward to distract him, “I forgot to check your eyes today.”

Immediately his gaze snapped to her, with a slight narrowing that said he was going to be resistant. She was not surprised when he caught her hand holding the penlight before it could reach his eyes. His grip was very delicate but impossible to break; Rachel knew better than to try.

“What’d you do this morning, that dislocated your shoulder and messed up your knee?” she asked pedantically.

“I drove a car off a roof.”

“No chance at all you hit your head when you landed?” Her opinion on the matter was clear.

His expression took on a slightly evasive tinge. “I don’t recall that happening.”

“Well you wouldn’t, would you?” Rachel reasoned. “You’re too busy thinking about running away from the exploding car with your top-secret microdot concealed in a sugar cube soaked with LSD.” Jeremy blinked at her in confusion, then released her hand and let her check his eyes. “That was from the old _Mission: Impossible_ TV show,” she told him. “In case you thought I just made that up.”

“The LSD part made sense,” Jeremy commented innocently, and Rachel knew better than to ask if he was making a joke, because he likely wasn’t.

She put the penlight away and turned to check on Simmons, who seemed to have been staring at them. “Are you ready for the x-rays, Doctor?” she prompted.

He nodded quickly. “Uh, yes, here, take this to the x-ray room,” Simmons said, handing her a form. “Do you need an orderly to help you?” he added as Jeremy transferred himself to the wheelchair.

“No, I can manage,” Rachel assured him.

“So I see,” Simmons commented cryptically.

“Parking brake,” Jeremy reminded her again.

“Thank you, Peter Parker,” Rachel muttered, releasing it.

Simmons got the door for her. “He’s not sedated at all?” he finally asked, as though he’d been wanting to for some time. “No muscle relaxants or mood stabilizers or anything?”

“Not that I know of,” Rachel asserted, pushing Jeremy through the doorway.

“Dr. Ward likes me to chill,” Jeremy deadpanned.

**

Friday afternoon case reviews were not the most interesting part of Rachel’s job, but she had learned they weren’t so much about rehashing the details of the week’s cases—which both she and Director Delu had in front of them—as they were about the Director checking her reactions to them. They also gave her the opportunity to add some details that weren’t exactly appropriate for official reports, which she nonetheless felt were important. So far the Director had done nothing to discourage this practice, so she kept doing it.

“Now, about Jeremy Green,” Delu went on, turning to a new file, and Rachel stifled a sigh. “He returned from his mission on Tuesday and reported to you with injuries, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Rachel agreed. “Dislocated shoulder, multiple lacerations, and bruised ligaments in his knee, primarily.”

“You took him to Dr. Simmons, the orthopedic surgeon, for a consultation,” Delu went on, “and a hostility alert was triggered in his office.” He gave her a concerned look. “Can you tell me what happened there, Dr. Ward?”

“Dr. Simmons overreacted,” Rachel replied succinctly. “He prefers to have the agents sedated during exams, but Jeremy didn’t _want_ to be sedated. And I agreed with Jeremy, he was being perfectly calm. In fact Dr. Simmons didn’t realize he _wasn’t_ sedated until I said something.” She paused a moment, then plunged ahead. “I don’t really think that’s a good policy, sir. Sedating patients for exams. Ten CC’s of paverine is very strong, it would probably be fatal to you or me.” Delu raised an eyebrow curiously. “That’s one more thing the agents have to recover from, and it depresses their natural healing processes.”

“But you would agree it’s necessary if the agent is behaving aggressively?” Delu questioned.

“Well, if they pose a danger to themselves or others, sure, sedation might be necessary,” Rachel agreed cautiously. “Or if the agents _prefer_ to be sedated—like, my cousin Terri works at one of those sedation dentistry places, for people who are so scared of the dentist they’d rather not know what was going on at all—“ She realized she was rambling and cut herself off. “Anyway, like I said, Jeremy wasn’t being aggressive. He just didn’t want to be sedated, and that’s when Dr. Simmons called him _hostile_.”

Delu leafed through another report on his desk. “Well, according to Dr. Simmons, he became alarmed when Jeremy grabbed his arm. He felt that was aggressive behavior.”

Rachel tried not to roll her eyes in front of her boss. “Okay, so Jeremy’s not that good with words,” she admitted. “He took hold of Dr. Simmons’s wrist because Simmons was holding the syringe of paverine—it was to prevent him from injecting Jeremy. Which he was planning to do even though I also objected.”

“So according to your report, Jeremy was _not_ being aggressive, but Simmons wanted to sedate him anyway,” Delu summarized, “and it was only when Simmons actually approached Jeremy with the syringe that Jeremy intervened physically.”

“Yes,” Rachel confirmed. “And that was when Dr. Simmons said Jeremy was being hostile.”

“And how was that situation resolved?” Delu asked thoughtfully.

“Well, I asked Jeremy if he _wanted_ to be sedated and he said no,” Rachel recounted. “And I registered my own objection with Dr. Simmons. And then he agreed not to sedate Jeremy, and Jeremy let him go.”

“And Dr. Simmons continued with the exam?”

“Yes,” Rachel nodded. “He checked his shoulder and then sent us to the x-ray room.”

“Mm-hmm.” Delu seemed to give this some thought. “This business with Jeremy grabbing people to stop them—it _is_ a little worrying.”

Rachel didn’t really agree. “Sure, I guess it would be better if he just _said_ ‘stop,’” she hedged, “but as we saw with Simmons, that doesn’t always work.”

“Yes, but he’s done it several times with you also,” Delu pointed out. “You tend not to mention it in your reports,” he added dryly, “but I had someone go back and check the tapes. In fact he intervened physically with you several times that same day, didn’t he?”

Rachel tried to recall. “Well, I guess—oh, for sure when I was going to check his eyes,” she remembered. “He doesn’t really like that, because his eyes are sensitive to light. We usually have a little tussle over that.”

“’Tussle’?” Delu repeated curiously, and Rachel immediately kicked herself for using that word.

“No, not a tussle, of course,” she corrected quickly. “I tell him I need to do it, he stops me, and we discuss it. I tell him why I think it’s important, and so far he’s always been fine with it after that.”

“So you’ve never felt threatened by it?” Delu checked.

“Well, no,” Rachel assured him. “I mean, that’s how he reacts to things, right? Physically? He’s not very chatty, I mean. Well, none of the agents are. They tend to be very literal, just-the-facts-ma’am, you know?” Kindly Delu did not point out that _she_ obviously didn’t have that problem. “So if Jeremy, or any of them, have a little trouble articulating things sometimes—well, it’s only to be expected they’ll go for the physical next. It doesn’t mean they’re going to hurt me. In fact Jeremy is very careful to stop me _without_ hurting me.”

“And you’ve never felt threatened by the agents?” Delu went on. His tone of voice gave no clue as to what the ‘right’ answer was.

“Well, sure,” Rachel countered. “I mean, the first time I met Jeremy he pointed a gun at me!”

“Oh, right,” Delu remembered, as if that were a minor incident.

“But always, it’s just because they were scared or sick or something like that, never anything malicious,” she insisted. “We got through it fine. Sedating them would’ve just made things worse.”

“Mm-hmm,” Delu commented vaguely.

She waited a moment to see if he would say anything else. “Should I have done something differently, sir?” she asked, when he didn’t.

“Oh, I think you’re doing fine,” Delu replied, but so casually that Rachel couldn’t take much encouragement from it. “You seem to get positive results, so just do what you feel is best. Don’t be afraid to use sedation or your panic button or whatever if you feel threatened, though,” he cautioned.

“Yes, sir,” Rachel replied dutifully.

“Now, let’s move on to Min Lee…”


End file.
